Sarah’s field of dreams P11 Friday, July 31, 2015 Courier East & Bays Your Place, Your Paper Daniel and Browen Simpson with their children Adam, 8, Alice, 3, and Katy, 8. PHOTO: ALASTAIR LYNN Halfmoon Bay School principal Kath Johnson. Family helps out island school ALASTAIR LYNN It was an unusual family holiday with a noble purpose. The Simpsons from Glendowie have just returned from a trip to Stewart Island. They won a Trade Me auction designed to help save a teacher’s job at Halfmoon Bay School. The school put up a listing for an allexpenses paid, month-long residence for a family. ‘‘They had about 24 kids at the school, ‘‘ Bronwen Simpson says. ‘‘A family had left and they were about to lose the funding for their second teacher.’’ If the school could bulk up its roll for the final two weeks of term it would be able keep its second teacher. ‘‘It was just an amazing chance for the kids so we had to do it.’’ Stewart Island has a population of 387 and is a far cry from city life in Auckland. Halfmoon Bay School principal Kath Johnson says the community really rallied behind the plan. ‘‘If you lose a teacher it’s quite hard to replace them,’’ she says. ‘‘There’s not many people that could up and move here. It worked really well.’’ Johnson says the Simpson fam- ily slotted in well with island life. ‘‘It was really great to have some new people here. ‘‘They’re thinking about coming back. ‘‘We’d definitely love to see them here again.’’ They were there to help but the Simpsons were not immune to some gentle jibes from the locals. ‘‘They did give us a bit of stick for locking up the house at night,’’ Bronwen Simpson says. ‘‘With such a small population everyone knows everyone so it’s really safe. It’s been a bit overwhelming coming back to all the traffic and the people.’’ And while Aucklanders may be feeling the cold this winter, the Simpsons have no sympathy after their Stewart Island experience. ‘‘It’s bitterly cold down there,’’ Bronwen Simpson says. ‘‘You can’t even go outside for a few minutes before you get cold. The shower is the warmest part of the day.’’ Designers’ poster just purrfection JESS LEE A pair of graphic designers may have the ‘‘purrfect’’ solution to tracking down missing moggies. Central Auckland creatives Alice Murray and Jared McDowell are using their free time to give badly designed missing pet posters a facelift to help cat owners find their feline friends. They will officially launch their site haveyouseenmycat.com on July 30. Murray says usually people’s poster efforts are made in a rush and have dark images and small, unclear font. ‘‘We wanted to do a side project Graphic designers Alice Murray and Jared McDowell have designed their own missing cat posters to help cat-owners find their feline friends. and we saw some missing cat posters when we were out on the street and thought: ‘We could do those better’,’’ the Kohimarama resident says. They have created a large tem- plate which has space for a clearcut image of the cat, its name and description, owner’s contact details and a link to the website. Owners send through their fur baby’s facts and figures and the pair set to work creating a poster which is then emailed back and posted on social media. They aim to get a PDF of the poster to owners within 12 hours, who are then free to print as many copies as they like. Hard copies can be couriered across Auckland to those without access to a printer. Murray says there is still a place for the humble missing pet poster in the digital age. ‘‘Our dream would be that it will spread worldwide and that people would recognise the design as the missing cat poster,’’ she says. Anxious owners can even order T-shirts printed with their moggy’s mugshot. If people spot a missing cat they can post a photo to Instagram and get in touch with the owners. The service costs $10, which will help Murray and McDowell cover costs, with the remainder to be donated to the Pet Doctors Animal Care Charitable Trust. If the posters take off, the pair will consider expanding the site to include other pets. Go to haveyouseenmycat.com. Ballerina’s OperaHouse debut P5